


The Levee

by masongirl



Series: The best laid plans [10]
Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Affection, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amputation, Angst, Car Accidents, Depression, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Injury Recovery, Kissing, Living Together, Love, M/M, POV Toye, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Serious Injuries, Sexual Content, Some Humor, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:46:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24045349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masongirl/pseuds/masongirl
Summary: Joe has a car accident and loses his right leg. His recovery is a long journey of ups and downs, but there's always light at the end of the tunnel.
Relationships: George Luz/Joseph Toye, Henry Jones/David Kenyon Webster, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: The best laid plans [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682071
Comments: 20
Kudos: 54





	The Levee

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags first, because this contains some possibly triggering parts. 
> 
> I put a lot of thought into this story, so I hope you'll like it! Have fun reading. :)

The worst is that Joe was having a good day.

There are several doctors moving around him in their green scrubs and latex gloves, but Joe's in so much pain that he can't grasp what they're trying to say. They talk in long, long sentences filled with words like _irreparable_ and _transfemoral_ and _consent,_ and he can't focus through the dizziness and the dull, radiating agony. His entire right side is burning. The skin of his arm feels flayed off and his leg is on fire from within. He wants to shake it and roll on the ground until it's extinguished, but he's stabbed by a thousand knives when he tenses his muscles and it's his other leg that kicks out. Someone holds it down by the ankle.

"I gotta get up." Joe whimpers, trying to swing an arm to the side, but another person catches his wrist and pins it to the stretcher gently. "George…"

He hears someone approach and he tries to turn his head even though his skull hurts in sympathy with the liquid fire eating at his leg, but there's a brace around his neck. The person leans over him to look him in the eye. It's a nurse with the face of an angel. Joe opens his mouth to plead. He has places to be. "I need my phone."

"Shh." She strokes his forehead. Her face is calm and she's smiling warmly. "Mr. Toye, these doctors say they need to amputate your right leg to save your life. They would like you to agree to it."

Joe understands, he thinks, but then he blinks and the words flutter away like the feathers of a white dove. Everything is too white here. "George will..." ...do it, he wants to say. George will do whatever they want on Joe's behalf. The nurse sighs and shakes her head at the doctors. Someone's trying to call Joe's mother, but it might just be a dream. Joe closes his eyes and lets the thread of their voices go as it fades away into the welcome darkness spreading around him.

* * *

The next time Joe wakes up, his eyelids feel sticky. For minutes, he can only open one at a time and it shuts immediately, falls back down as if pulled closed by a magnet. He can't focus his gaze, but from the glimpses he gets, he puts a pale yellow hospital room together. There's a sheer white curtain pulled around the left side of his bed, and he can hear the faint rumble of noises from the other side. A woman's sniffles, then the soothing lilt of a much deeper voice. It's George's.

The realization prompts Joe to struggle anew. He manages to open both eyes at once to see that George's standing halfway inside the curtain, nodding and smiling reassuringly at the other person - probably Joe's mother. He looks like a wreck, as if he hasn't slept in a day, and come to think of it, Joe has no idea how long he's been out. Could it have been longer than a few hours?

As soon as the door closes, George hurries to the bed and leans close to Joe's head. "Hey." He whispers and caresses Joe's face. His lips curl into a smile. "I knew you were awake. Saw your fingers move."

Joe has to fight to push his eyes open again after every single blink, and talking is similarly difficult. Thinking too. Something is wrong with his head. His voice is a weak croak. "Hurts."

"It will get better soon, just hold on, darling." George tells him and presses the nurse call button. His behaviour freaks Joe out - the only time George has ever called him darling was on the day Joe's beloved grandpa died. Something terrible happened.

A nurse comes in, exchanges a few hushed words with George and adjusts the drug levels in Joe's infusion. Then, she glances at George again before reaching under the blanket by Joe's thigh and doing something there too. Joe hopes it's not something related to his bodily fluids because George may be his boyfriend but he doesn't need to see that. He wants to look, but he can't raise his head a single inch. There's something around his neck that holds him in place. He must have had a neck injury. He can't feel his legs - well, maybe he can sense something from his left one, but he's so groggy, he's not sure. Jesus, what if…?

"Paralyzed?" He mumbles to George after the nurse leaves, trying to assess whether he can move anything at all. His fingers twitch feebly.

"No, you're not paralyzed." George smiles again and kisses his left hand, rubbing Joe's forearm. There's something around the other arm, from Joe's biceps down to his fingertips. Bandages, most likely.

The painkillers kick in and Joe closes his eyes and drifts off a little. The gentle touch on his hand fills his head with a warm, fuzzy feeling. He's safe here. It's going to be okay. He floats in numb nothingness. He knows he's been in a car crash, and in that dull way dreams roll forward, he glides through his own memories.

"Let me drive, man, just this once." Ethan, his colleague, said when they got the new contract wrapped up an hour early, and Joe gave in.

He wanted to text George he got off early, and he couldn't have done that while driving anyway. They could go out, have some fun, he thought. Catch a movie maybe. They hadn't been in ages. He got his phone out when the car hit the road and joined the surprisingly light traffic. There wasn't a single cloud that broke the cheery spring sunshine, and Joe slouched down in his seat a little to soak it in through the window. He rested his knee against the door, stretching his right leg out as much as he could.

 _"Love my way, it's a new road."_ His colleague's off-key singing followed the radio's lilt as they approached an intersection.

Joe remembers that he looked up to tell him to shut it - then that screech came, tires clinging to an asphalt that wasn't holding them back, and he had just enough time to raise his arms before a car caught their side full force.

He jerks back to full consciousness and George's hand tightens around his immediately to remind him he's safe. Joe shudders and purses his lips. No matter how hard he tries, he can't remember what happened after the collision. It's a complete blackout. He tries to make his dry lips work. "Ethan?"

"He's fine. Just a few scrapes and a broken nose from the airbag." Thank God.

"Guess I didn't get off that easy." Joe whispers with the hint of a smile. He doesn't have the energy to raise his voice, the drugs are weighing him down like a lead-thick fog.

George takes a deep breath. "No."

"Mom?"

"She thinks you're still asleep. She's not handling the situation well, so I thought it would be better if I did this alone." George's expression turns sombre and he holds Joe's gaze dead on. "Joe, they amputated your right leg."

Those words don't make a lick of sense. "What?"

"They had to cut it off." George's voice wavers, but he keeps his expression calm. "Above the knee. The wreck completely crushed it, there was no way to save it. They wanted your consent, but the operation couldn't wait. You could have gone into cardiac arrest."

They cut his leg off. He doesn't have one of his legs. Where is it? Why couldn't they save it? It really must be his right one, he can't feel it. Why can't he? Is he going to forget how it felt? Will he ever be able to walk again? How is he going to do anything if he can't walk? He's twenty-five, he can't - he can't live the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Hospitals are supposed to put you together, he's young, his body should have been able to heal, he can't live without his leg, he can't, how will he ever do anything again?

Even in his drug-addled haze, Joe's eyes well up with confused tears. "You should have let me die."

"You don't mean that." George says forlornly. "I'm not your next of kin anyway. Your mom gave her consent. It was almost certain we would lose you if she didn't say yes."

Joe's face crumples and the teardrops roll down into his mouth. His breathing speeds up. "I need to see it, I - George -"

"It's okay, it's okay. Don't move." George keeps a hand on his left shoulder as he presses a button on the bed and raises its back just enough to let Joe see his lower half. There's nothing on his right side. Nothing from just above where his knee should be. The blanket is flat and creaseless on the mattress.

Joe hyperventilates. He can't comprehend it. He's in a nightmare that never seems to end and his leg is gone, it's gone. How can he get it back? His vision darkens around the edges, but then, George cradles Joe's face in his palms and strokes his cheekbones with his thumbs until he calms down somewhat. Joe holds all the fear, confusion and grief back and pushes them away to focus on the rational things, the ones he can process. He glances up into George's sad brown eyes. "What else?"

"A concussion and a sprained neck from whiplash. Three broken ribs. Some bruises from the seatbelt. And your right arm is covered in glass shard cuts because you raised it to protect your face." George goes back to holding his hand again, as though he's afraid if he lets go, Joe will slip right through death's door and won't come back. "The driver who crashed into you died."

Joe doesn't feel anything when he hears that. He imagines a faceless body lying next to a car wreck, red-blue lights flashing in the blood on the asphalt, and he doesn't feel any emotion at all. He closes his eyes and hooks his mind to the downward pull of morphine, not wanting to cling to consciousness anymore. He feels a kiss on his forehead before he falls asleep again.

He has another surgery a few days later. It lasts long enough that visiting hours are over when he wakes up to an irritating ache in the chunk left of his leg and a heart-shaped cookie on the table beside his bed. There's a note written on the napkin in George's messy cursive.

_what a tough cookie you are_

It's one of George's habits to leave silly messages like this around when he wants to make Joe smile. But it doesn't go as planned this time. Joe stares at it and stares and stares until his sight is blurry and his inhales hitch in his throat and he's wet from salty water from his cheeks to his nose, to his mouth. He wipes at his face and tears the note into little pieces, smaller and smaller ones until each looped letter is broken like his body. George's love hurts, and he doesn't want it.

The next morning, he's assigned to a physical therapist and they start basic range of motion exercises as soon as he can raise his head without throwing up. They teach him how to sit up and move to a chair and use a wheelchair and a walker, how to go to the toilet on his own and how to sleep. Joe goes through the motions but doesn't react to anything. Ever since that incident after the second surgery, he has been impassive, dead inside. Not a tear in his eyes.

His doctor asks to talk to George and gives him a catalogue of walking aids for amputees. Upon seeing them, Joe explicitly bans George from buying either of them and says he'd rather crawl like a fucking pound dog, but he ends up having no say in it because the physical therapist tells them he'll need a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Not always, but often enough. He wants to die then. Grab a knife and slice into the tender inside of his wrist, connecting the cuts on his forearm in a circle until the blood dripping down looks like a red glove. It's the first day he seriously thinks about it and knows it won't be the last.

* * *

They release him from the hospital after fourteen days. He gets a whole entourage home because everyone thinks he came back from the dead, and he sits in the middle of the backseat of his sister's car, stuck between his parents. His mom cries and can't stop hugging him, gingerly, as if he'd shatter like a glass bulb under a Doc Martens, and his dad makes digs at George's driving, his cooking, the state of their apartment, the fact that George has a layer of plumpness on his torso. Joe can't move a muscle without pain but he still has the temper to slam a door even from a wheelchair, and he waits alone in the bedroom as his family says a quiet goodbye, promising to be back the next day. When they're gone, George opens the door and leans against the wooden frame, arms crossed. He shakes his head with a smile. Joe can't help but smile back for a fleeting second of normality. Some things never change.

He quits his job when it becomes evident that his bosses find his injury and the adjustments he needs a huge nuisance. Fuck them. He goes to counselling and rehab and massage therapy and check-ups and artificial leg fitting and to all the pharmacies along the way that sell the horse-kick strong painkillers he eats for breakfast. George drives him with a borrowed car, and he keeps sitting in the middle of the backseat because the doors scare him. George feeds him. George changes his bandages and checks his stump for skin breaks and redness. He talks to the doctors, the nurses, the counsellor, the specialists and Joe's mom and charms them all into thinking Joe doesn't mean to be that surly. George helps him take sponge baths and doesn't mention it when Joe has to close his eyes from the humiliation.

"We'll buy a bathtub." He says one night, five days after Joe came home. "And as soon as you get the A-okay, you can shower as usual. I'll install the grab bars tomorrow."

George puts the grab bars in the bathroom himself and graces Joe with the most beautiful smile Joe has seen in weeks. He's so proud and hopeful, thinking his work might cheer Joe up, that Joe ends up feeling more terrible than he did before for being such a disappointment. He tries to conceal it though.

"Good job." He squeezes George's shoulder and gives him a small smile. It saddens him when he realizes that the little gesture must have made George's day.

It starts an awful pattern. Every joke, every compliment, each attempt made to lift his mood, all the kind words and humor George gifts him with just make his depression worse. Joe attacks their bedside tables and throws all their full-body photos in a drawer, unable to bear the sight. In his vehemence, he breaks the glass around their graduation picture and cuts his index finger, smearing blood on the simple frame. He deserves it, he thinks.

When his ribs are healed, he's told to sleep on his stomach as often as he can to avoid contractures. It would be difficult to straighten up if his muscles tensed and grew rigid the wrong way. He doesn't think much about it until he settles down on the first night and realizes he can't reciprocate any touch that isn't on his arms. George curls up and rests his cheek on his shoulder blade, hugging him with an arm on his back for long minutes, and he just lies there like yet another pillow in his boyfriend's collection. Like a plastic doll. But he doesn't speak, because he knows his thoughts are stupid and distorted. He begins to dread nights too.

* * *

It's inevitable, but it still sucks when George has to go back to work. Joe's mother suggests Joe should move back home for a while, but Joe nips that thought in the bud. Her coddling would drive him crazy. On the first couple of days, Bill comes over and almost makes him forget his loss with his merciless jokes and general idiocy, but then Joe's alone and boredom is bad company. He spends hours one morning naked in front of the only full-body mirror they own and tries to get used to the man looking back. He looks a little thinner, his face sickly-hollow. The cuts on his arm have become a collection of faint red notches, like a grotesque sleeve tattoo, but most of them aren't permanent.

It's the sight of his stump that makes him nauseous. He can see where they sewed what's left of him together, those uneven lines. He doesn't have the stomach to feel it out, but he knows the knob of it will be quite tender for a while more. Although it might appear healed on the outside, it's full of contusions and wounds on the inside. The thought sickens him - he imagines his muscles and vessels as a damaged pulp stuffed into the too-tight skin around it and he wants to throw up.

It's going to shrink, his doctor said, as the swelling gradually goes down. Once it reaches its final size, he can get a permanent prosthesis and his new life would start. He'll never run again, never play ball games with the guys or go hiking in the summer. He'll never swim in the ocean or ride a bike. His mother says amputees can still do those things with some adjustments, but Joe knows he wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than what he used to have, and no one claims that could be a realistic goal.

Exposure to the sight of his own ruined body doesn't help. It might even make things worse, because he can't stop ruminating about it after, never a positive thought in his mind. For a week, he does nothing but watching TV on the couch and staring at a crack in the ceiling. Is the building as damaged on the inside as his thigh? How long do they have until it falls completely apart? Until the wood and the brick breaks and the coat of paint is torn into pieces? Will the house have to be vacated one day until it stands dead and abandoned in a living neighbourhood, like a useless limb on a healthy body?

On a rainy Monday afternoon in May, with nothing else to do, he pushes a hand into his pants and decides it might do him some good if he jerked off. It's not like he could expect George to touch him that way when he's repulsive even to himself. He starts with a nice fantasy of a movie star, a busty chick with killer curves just to spice things up and, as usual, thoughts and memories of George sneak into the picture. It would be a threesome, he imagines. Joe would be forceful this time and George would stay sweet, and the woman would enjoy the contrast. He's comfortably turned on, but then he remembers a touch, how the sensations used to run through his body whenever George grabbed his leg under the knee, and it reminds him that he has no knee there anymore, and his cock goes limp even before the sting of unshed tears registers in his eyes.

Being aware of his failure as a man makes him painfully self-conscious. As a combined effect of the drugs and his state of mind, his libido is nonexistent. He can't even keep an erection anymore. He doesn't feel whole, and he's not. On workdays, when he's alone and isn't dragged out to PT and counselling by a friend or a relative, he doesn't get out of bed for anything but to piss. He starves himself for a few days and doesn't even notice it until George announces he'll video call him at lunchtime every single day and they will eat together. He says Joe had better get used to being stuffed full of calories or George will move him home to his parents himself. It's enough to jolt him out of his apathy but doesn't quell the burning shame behind it all.

Joe hides his leg from everyone and everything and avoids changing in front of others. He locks the bathroom when he showers. He can pinpoint the exact second when George realizes the source of the problem - it's the end of a PT session and Joe's therapist thinks it might boost Joe's confidence if he walked the path between the parallel bars towards an actual person instead of the big empty nothing. When George enters, Joe freezes. He's in shorts to make adjustments easier, and the metal rod that makes up his right leg is clearly visible. His skin heats up as he blushes, and he can't look George in the eye for the excruciatingly long time it takes to shuffle ahead in his temporary prosthesis. He feels like a toddler, struggling with the world's most basic motion in front of an audience. His shame is palpable, and he knows George can put two and two together even if he doesn't show it.

Later that day during dinner, George twirls spaghetti on his fork and makes a casual wave with it. "By the way, Webster's coming to visit us tomorrow."

Joe coughs around a mouthful of water. "Are you joking?"

"He asked me if we wanted to get together sometime and I've just decided on tomorrow."

Joe doesn't want to analyse what prompted the decision, just grumbles into his glass. "You can bet your ass he's been dumped again and he's looking for a cheer-me-up."

"He just wants to enjoy your charming company." George drawls, amused.

"Why are you two even friends?"

"He was your flatmate."

"And you automatically need to befriend everyone I know?"

George swallows another bite and winks. "Only the good-looking ones."

"I don't like this."

For such a shitty idea, George's smile is way too damn delighted. "You gotta deal with it, baby."

Joe refuses to leave his sulking place when the doorbell rings the next afternoon. He hopes he might get away with staying there for another half hour because George tends to keep the bedroom closed to guests, including their parents.

"George Luz!" He hears Web's jovial voice from outside and can already feel his mental reserves draining.

"Web, good to see you, pal." George is, unfortunately, in a bubbly mood because he tricked Joe into helping in the kitchen and the apple pie they made is apparently "killer". Adding that liveliness to Webster's general behaviour, they are looking at a long visit. "My bitter half is hiding in the bedroom. Joe, you'd better be presentable!"

Joe rolls his eyes at their wooden wardrobe and pushes his wheelchair further back into the empty corner next to the window. He scoffs when George says, "Just go on ahead."

The door opens, and Webster's spacy face enters the room. "Hey, Joe. What's up?" He smiles reflexively, then it melts off into bewilderment. "Oh. Did something happen? I mean…"

"Car crash." Joe says grimly to the olive curtain.

"Is it permanent?"

"No, I'll just regrow my leg, Webster."

"Oh, I didn't realize…"

Of course. It's not that the type of Joe's injury is obvious, because it's not, what with the trousers hiding his prosthesis - it's the fact that Webster is out of the loop again. It's almost as if he lived half of his life in a world filled with magical shit only he sees. Joe shakes his head in exasperation. Better not prolong this if he has to interact with Web anyway.

"Give me a hand up and I can walk to the table." He extends an arm and staggers upright with Web's help. He takes two steps on his own when right on cue, George calls out from the kitchen.

"If he stands up, don't let go of him, please." Damn him. Why does he know exactly what Joe's going to try when he's out of his sight?

To Joe's immense annoyance, Web isn't an enabler and he has more patience than Joe and George combined, so he doesn't mind walking Joe to the table at all. He keeps an arm around Joe's waist and gives him those pure glances of worry he used to put on when someone in their flat got sick. In turn, Joe shoots daggers at the floor. He feels like an old man with arthritis, held up by his dapper grandson out of pity. He sits in his seat in silence and broods while Webster fills the time with airy small talk.

Smoothly guiding the conversation away from Joe's accident, George sets the table and cracks jokes until Webster loses the lamenting look on his face. He strokes Joe's shoulder once as he passes by, and whether he means it as an apology or not, Joe feels mollified. It's true that he isn't supposed to walk unsupported yet. It's not George's fault that his body is a dysfunctional pile of crap.

The apple pie is mostly gone by the time Web relaxes enough to share a misty-eyed confession. "This probably doesn't come as a surprise, but... Henry and I broke up."

Joe gives George a look. He can see the corner of George's lips twitch, but to his credit, he stays serious. It turns out that Web's last boyfriend, Henry Jones, the attorney with not only a stick but an entire pole up his ass, was way too preoccupied with his career to pay attention to Web's gradually worsening mood. Right until Web had a breakdown, quit his PhD, sold his father's Tesla and spent two months on his own on a rented boat without notifying a single soul. He was found by the police in a week, but it's not like they could have dragged a grown, mostly sane man home to his mother or his stunned supervisor. When Webster finally scraped his composure together and went back to his apartment, he found a handwritten letter from Henry wishing him the best alone. They didn't even discuss breaking up.

"That's rough, man." Joe says and means it. He has his own share of shit to work through, but at least in his case it's obvious what caused it all to slip out of his hands. And he can't imagine how it must hurt to mean only a letter to the most important person in his life. "Guarnere and I can get ahold of that jerk for you if you want."

His offer makes George smile. He puts his hand on Joe's thigh, hooking his fingertips in the inseam of his trousers. "Don't listen to Joe. Who cares about exes anymore, right? You should go out, have a few drinks."

"I did. It was… an enlightening experience." Web picks at a loose thread in the tablecloth, the weight of the world on his shoulders. He gives them a wary glance. "Do you think I look like a hooker?"

"You look like the prep boy you are." George chuckles.

"Why?" Joe adds immediately.

Webster sighs, a dreamy look on his face despite the dismissive words that come out of his mouth. "I just met an asshole, that's all."

They don't get much more out of him on that, but Joe writes it off as another unfortunate attempt on Web's part to find someone who fits him. That boy has piss poor judgement in love. His boyfriends are either boring as a cardboard box or don't have interest in his intellect, just his body. At this point, it's impossible to guess what kind of person would stay with him - maybe someone exactly like him. Joe likes Web enough to tolerate his annoying traits, but that's it. He shudders when he imagines George inviting not one but two Websters to visit.

The longer he stays, the happier Webster gets. He doesn't act the slightest bit differently from his usual attitude, and he says they should go on a boat trip together sometime this summer, which means he forgot that Joe's not likely to have stable balance anytime soon. It sparks a thought in Joe's mind. Did George think that this would convince him people will treat him the same despite his loss?

When Web leaves, he shakes both Joe's and George's hands and gives them a grateful smile. "Ah, it's always good to spend time with you guys. I've become lachrymose in the past few days, but you helped me see the silver lining again. We should get together more often!"

As soon as the door swings shut behind him, George turns to Joe and raises his eyebrows pointedly. "See? Webster all but forgot your leg, it didn't change anything for him."

He walks away towards the bedroom to get the wheelchair, but he keeps talking nonetheless. "There's no need for you to become a self-conscious recluse." He rolls the chair to Joe's seat, then rubs his palms together. "And we cheered him up. I'm a genius. Two dumbasses with one stone."

Joe gives him a dark look while he transfers himself to the wheelchair. "I don't care about his opinion."

"And I didn't eat the last batch of your sister's cookies."

"Hey!"

George grins in triumph for a second, then leans back against the table and lets his smile gentle. "Joe, your friends don't care. You're not your body to them."

Joe watches George's hands. They rest calmly on the tablecloth, don't fidget or pick at a nail. "And you?"

"I think you're sexy as fuck."

Joe rubs the worry lines on his forehead. "I'm not."

"You are." George peels himself away from the table and leans down to Joe's level, hands on the armrests of the wheelchair. He waggles his eyebrows. "You know, I've always had a thing for cyborgs."

Joe chuckles in disbelief. "No, you haven't."

"I kept it a secret. Didn't want to make you feel insecure with my massive crush on Will Smith in I, Robot."

"You just made that up."

"I don't tell you everything."

Joe laughs. "Yes, you do. You talk all the damn time, you weirdo."

"Takes one to know one."

On his way back, George switched the big ceiling light off and now only the ones under the kitchen cabinet glow. They cast orange highlights into his hair and on the line of his stubbled jaw, and his eyelashes are a dark frame of shadows around his brown eyes. His lips thin when he grins and leans back to avoid the kiss Joe tries to plant on them. He's playing, and mischief makes him so attractive, it's irresistible. Joe gives him the reaction he wants - he fists a hand in George's collar and draws him close, kisses him until the stubble burn on his chin tingles.

"I meant what I said about you." George says when they part.

Joe bows his head. A lock of George's fringe brushes his forehead. "Did you?" He says listlessly. In his heart, he can't really believe it right now.

"Yes."

They fall into silence, but George doesn't straighten up. He must sense it, the tension holding Joe's lungs captive and the heat of the shame that torments him inside. Joe doesn't think he has ever felt this anxious in his life, as if he's about to admit a crime or a betrayal he regrets. It's a failure that could end everything. They are young and sex is… it shouldn't be, but it _is_ important. He needs to come clean somehow. Even though it would cut his lifeline if George left him over this.

"I have a problem." He says, and his voice is raspy-dry.

"I know." George replies quietly.

"It just doesn't -" Joe makes a helpless gesture at his lower half, but George's already nodding, so he doesn't bother finishing the sentence. He looks down again instead. "I need time."

"Of course."

"If you want it, I can still make it good for you."

"Joe, _no."_ George squeezes his hand. "It's okay, I understand. Don't stress yourself about it." He smiles and nods. He waits until Joe nods back before moving away to do the dishes, humming. It's a relief that he doesn't kick up a fuss about it. The lack of promises feels more reassuring than a long, sympathetic speech would have. Joe exhales.

* * *

An unexpected consequence of living with a bunch of severed nerves is that Joe's residual limb is often more sensitive than any other part of his body. Sometimes, he wakes up in the middle of the night and the weight of the blanket feels like a veil of needles, and he can't stand any tactile sensation on his skin. Even a stronger gust of air can become torture. Unfortunately, there's nothing better to do about it but frequent "desensitization", which in practice translates to touching it until it gets used to it again.

One night, Joe startles awake from a vague dream of dark fog and realizes his leg has become a pincushion again. It can't be long after he went to sleep because he finds himself stuck with a problem he wouldn't have if it was later. This time, George has fallen asleep on him, curled up with his head on Joe's back. If Joe moves, he'll wake up. The one thing George definitely needs but doesn't admit it is sleep, so Joe resists the urge to jerk in pain. He grits his teeth and tries to drift off with sheer willpower, but it doesn't work. He can't suppress a small whine, and it's enough to stir George half-awake.

"Hm? What?" George snuffles sleepily and rolls away. "'M sorry."

With the lump of George's body gone, the blanket falls on Joe's stump and it's an unbearable pressure. Joe wheezes and swears, gripping the sheet, and throws the covers off in the same motion he uses to roll over and sit up. The first instinct would be to clutch at his leg, but it's touching that hurts it, so he clenches one fist and sweats through a wave of pain, then grabs for George's hand with the other.

George jerks upright with a start. "What, what's wrong? Phantom pain? Contractures?"

"Pins and needles." Joe grunts. Although it doesn't feel like a limb that has fallen asleep, it's still the best way to put it.

George's wild expression relaxes. He tucks his knees under himself and rests his forehead on Joe's shoulder with drowsy sluggishness. "Okay." Carefully, he folds the leg of Joe's boxer briefs up and holds his fingers above Joe's quivering thigh. "Ready?"

Joe blows several huffs of air through his mouth before he nods. "Yes."

George's fingertips brush the hair on his thigh in five lines down to the knob at the end, then back up. He lowers his hand a notch after each swipe until he has his whole palm on Joe's skin.

Joe throws his head back in pain. "Fuck. This is ridiculous." He hisses. His thigh muscles shake.

George leans back and slides his arm around Joe's shoulders to steady him. He keeps moving his hand in gentle circles until Joe's tension dissolves. "I like doing it."

As is usual nowadays, Joe feels sullen and mean. He glowers. "You just like playing nurse."

"Oh, I do." George tilts his head coyly and smirks. Joe's wretched mood rolls off him like water off a duck's back. "But I need more practice. Show me how it's done right."

"No."

"Come on, do me. Let's do it together."

Joe glares but relents, reaching under George's shorts and brushing four of his fingertips along his thigh. He lets them skitter down gently, from the warmer parts of George's skin to his bare knee, then back up under the hem of those PJs. Joe knows that leg with his palms, his lips, his teeth, but there's novelty in this new way of touching and his attention shifts to the sensation seamlessly, his stump forgotten. He watches his hand disappear under the light fabric before sliding down again, just the pads of his fingers drawing a trail. Sometimes, it hits him even after four years that he can do this, can touch George anywhere he wants as often as he wants, because George chose him and continues to do so. A pleasant flame of possessiveness lights up in Joe's chest.

It's only a vague thought in the back of his mind that George has started leaning further forward to put pressure on his residual limb with both hands, like a massage. It doesn't hurt that bad anymore. He turns his wrist and strokes George's inner thigh when suddenly, George flinches and makes a little noise. His lips wobble when Joe's eyes snap up. Staring, Joe does it again, keeps it very light, fleeting and playful, and a snicker escapes George's mouth.

"Mr. Toye, behave yourself. This is a serious medical procedure." George says in his fake nurse voice, but he has to squeeze his eyes shut to keep from giggling when Joe teases him again.

He retaliates by drawing a single nail down along Joe's inner thigh, and it makes Joe snort. He tickles back, and they go back and forth until George breaks, giggling helplessly and scrabbling to get Joe's fingers off his leg. They've laughed themselves to tears by the time they fall back on the mattress, and Joe's chest hurts from laughter.

He shakes his head and cups the back of George's neck. "Georgie, I love you."

George gives him a soft, closed-lipped kiss that's half a smile, and they go back to sleep.

* * *

With all the medical bills they received as a parting present from the hospital, they don't have much to celebrate George's birthday in June. It's a quiet Sunday, just the two of them. The family party was the day before, but Joe told George to go alone because he wasn't sure he could stand being around so many people just yet. To make up for it, he forced himself to go down to the closest grocery store. He wore his fake leg and used crutches, not the chair - that way, he could pretend people saw only a man with a broken leg in him, not an AK amputee. He bought a bunch of marzipan bars and a bottle of sparkling wine. Non-alcoholic, since George says he won't drink until Joe's allowed to join him again. Joe figures he will have to take his damned pills at least until Thanksgiving, so that's still a while away.

The sweets make George happier than he expected, but it might have something to do with the fact that Joe left the apartment on his own. It's embarrassing, so Joe doesn't dwell on it. He tries to stay positive because this should not be about his issues. He does his best. It's far from enough, but Joe's just as far from being okay, so it will have to do.

Although they don't have money to spare for actual presents, the tub is ready, and they try it out that night together. George sweet-talks him into sitting between his legs and helps him get in the steaming water safely. They try to settle in a good position, but it's awkward and uncomfortable at first. Joe squirms and huffs and complains under his breath, wishes they could just take a shower together instead like they used to. But then, George pulls him back until Joe leans against his chest and makes him slide further down until he's lying more than sitting, his one good leg bent and touching George's. He gets a kiss on his temple.

"You should be the little spoon more often." The grin is audible in George's voice as he hugs Joe tight and dribbles a handful of water on Joe's chest. He strokes Joe's skin with his warm, wet hand.

Joe smiles and leans his head against George's. "This was a bad idea. Our tub is too small for two people."

George shushes him and builds a series of tiny foam piles on Joe's right arm. "Let me enjoy my bad idea. Just close your eyes and relax in this -" He grabs the soap bottle to read its label. "- this lilac blossom bath."

"All I can smell is your marzipan breath." Joe counters but shuts his eyes obediently. He lets George's hands chase the tension out of his body. Caressing his arms, chest and stomach, they soothe some of the pain that comes from Joe's mind, not his body.

It's not that uncomfortable anymore, but he'd still prefer showering together. They used to do that every week or so after they moved into this place and Joe always enjoyed it. That kind of intimacy is different from rolling around naked in bed. He loved to watch George's hair get wet, especially when George let him wash it. George would tilt his head back and those fluffy brown strands would turn black and smooth between Joe's fingers, as if they melted, a heavy curtain falling over George's nape. Joe liked combing through it. It was his favourite moment. George's face was always so captivating in those brief seconds the water took to reach his scalp. Will they ever be able to get back into the habit of sharing showers? Once Joe gets his permanent prosthesis, he'll be able to use the current one in water. Maybe then?

But the bath has its perks too, he has to admit. There's no pressure on either of his legs and less of a chance for slipping. His body is thankful for the respite, and this was the purpose they actually bought this thing for, so Joe's happy with what he got. And… Well, what George said is true. He should be the little spoon more often. It's a nice position to be in.

"Wanna shiver me timbers, cap'n?" George breaks the cozy silence, and Joe bursts into spluttering laughter. He can't believe he hadn't thought of all the pirate jokes his missing leg could lead to. Encouraged, George's hand stops stroking his abs and slides down to Joe's groin. "I can show ye me booty."

Although he knows where this is going, Joe can't help but crack a joke in his usual flat tone. "It must be a real treasure."

George's laugh echoes between the tiled bathroom walls and his chest rumbles against Joe's back. He kisses Joe's cheek and starts teasing him to make him fully hard. By now, most of the bubbles have disappeared and everything is visible, but the touch is still so pleasantly slippery and light that Joe's torn between desire and fear. He looks down at George's hands, one on his left thigh and the other on his cock and that turns him on, but then, he glances at the disfigured stump pressed to George's healthy leg on the other side. His stomach churns. He catches George's right. "Not tonight."

"Why not? I want you… I can feel that you want me too…" George punctuates his pauses with kisses pressed to Joe's jaw. "We have time to enjoy it… What's wrong?"

It's tempting to let George go ahead with it, but who knows how long Joe's erection would stay this way. It would be humiliating if he lost it while George was touching him - he can't let that happen. He sits up. "I should get out before my leg swells."

George lays a lingering, open-mouthed kiss on his neck and rubs his upper arm. "I can't help if you don't tell me what scares you."

"I don't need your help."

George drops his forehead to the back of Joe's neck and sighs. He hugs Joe again. "All right."

Joe digs his fingertips into George's forearms and wishes he could stop being a failure.

* * *

It must be counterproductive to his recovery, but Joe keeps counting the days, weeks and months like a prisoner serving a life sentence. He's been living without a right leg for 103 days now. Fifteen weeks. Almost four months. It's the 4th of July, the annual Toye family barbecue, and it seems like Joe's life is the only one that suffered the fate of his totalled car while everyone else seems to speed by on the highway. It's time to get out of that wreck, but he doesn't know how.

Overall, the party isn't as bad as Joe feared, because the kids find his temporary prosthesis cool and interesting, and the adults have enough common sense not to pry about it. One of his teenage cousins takes sneaky photos of the guests with her phone and she manages to snap one of him in his wheelchair, to Joe's utter embarrassment. He has a kitten on his lap in the picture, and George's crouching in front of him with a cat toy in his hand, trying to play with it. Joe tells her to delete it, but she has enough spunk to refuse.

Things take a turn for the worse when George, the little traitor, abandons him to go entertain the children. It leaves Joe alone with his mother, who's an overprotective, emotional mess and who keeps asking him to come "home", where they could take care of him. He almost blows up at her to forget it already, he has his own home, but he'd rather not make her cry. It must not be easy to let your child go on his own way. Does she regret consenting to his amputation? He wonders sometimes. They haven't talked about it yet. Joe did mention it to his therapist, but neither of them thinks there's resentment in him. It's something else that drives a rusty nail into his heart.

She's giving him his fifth hug of the day when the music coming from the speaker on the porch railing changes. _There's an army on the dance floor, it's a fashion with a gun my love,_ the new song starts, and Joe jolts. It's an eerily familiar tune. The contents of his stomach roil and his breathing feels suddenly inefficient, he can't take enough air. By the time he realizes his right arm is raised to his face, he's out of his wheelchair and stumbling towards the bathroom. He throws up, but makes his mother swear she won't tell George. That song. God, that fucking song.

* * *

The nightmares start after that. Joe considers himself a peaceful sleeper, but almost every night in July, he wakes up when it's still dark, gasping, shouting or swinging an arm up. The biggest problem is that he startles George awake too, and with no time to sleep it off on workdays, George builds up such a severe sleep debt that he dozes off next to his dinner one Friday and sleeps for twelve consecutive hours. What should Joe do? Get another pill he might get addicted to if he isn't careful? 

Helplessness makes him frustrated. He always bottled his anger inside until a trigger blew it all up, and it's exploding again right now but he has no target and no strength. And so it builds and grows higher, the frustration and that stinging, bitter venom he's choking on, until he bangs his fist on the table and the pulsing ache gives him relief. It's a revelation he wishes he hadn't made. He begins yearning for physical pain. His counsellor asked him once if he ever felt like attacking his residual limb and he said no, but he does now. Why is it even there anymore if it's useless? Nothing but a handle for the prosthetic socket, like a stud on a Lego brick. He wishes he could still talk to that therapist, not that she was much help, but at least there was someone he could tell without worrying George. But they simply can't afford it anymore.

One day, he's sitting by the bedroom window, watching the street and letting the flow of traffic lull him into that fluid state between sleep and wakefulness, when a car honks and he jumps so bad he bumps his elbow in the wheelchair. It's pathetic. Honestly, he doesn't know why anyone even bothers with him anymore. What's so good in a half-life, one filled with fear, nightmares and a pain they don't sell pills for? Perhaps he should go swallow a bottle of his painkillers and be done with it.

He goes out to the kitchen and stares at the box he and George keep their medicine in. It used to be full of basic stuff - cold and flu sachets, regular painkillers, vitamins - now, it's brimming with his shit. That one for stump pain, the other for phantom aches, that gel is for his one good knee if it's overexerted… How much would he be able to take at once? It would be a small mercy if he could rid George of all these drugs a healthy person doesn't need. He turns and looks at the mug George left on the counter. It's the big one he uses on bad days, when he needs twice as much of his sweet latte to go on as usual. How would he feel if he came home and found all the pills gone? No, Joe should… It would be better if he called someone to come over so that George would only get a call, so that he would be spared from the shock. But who knows how long it would take until he lost consciousness? He might not be able to use the phone. Perhaps he should do something else.

Logy and miserable, he pulls a ten-inch knife out of the utensil drawer. How would it feel to slit his wrist, like he imagined? He presses the blade to the inside of his arm, where he can see the blue branches of veins throb under his skin. It's cold, metallic relief. It would be easy, wouldn't it? Things would be better. George could move on and have the full life he deserves. But would Joe's blood leave a stain on the furniture? He doesn't know. He doesn't want to leave a mark or any sign that he lived here at all. He should take care of that before anything.

Slowly, he slides down to the floor and pulls the knife away from his wrist. It leaves a thin white line that turns pink in a second and disappears in a few minutes. He watches it until it's gone. How fleeting existence can be… He turns the knife over in his hand and presses the tip of it to his stump. Through his trousers, it almost tickles. It would sink in so easily. After all, it doesn't take more than a few hours to cut a leg off and seal the cut as if the limb has never been there at all. The knife falls out of his hand. He calls Bill.

"Hey, Joe. Missing good ol' Gonorrhea?" Bill sounds so happy that he called. It makes Joe's sight blur.

"You wish."

"How's it going? You good?"

Joe puts his palm on the cool floor he's sitting on and a drop of wetness lands on the back of his fingers. Then another, and another - they don't stop.

"Yeah." He whispers.

"That's great to hear, buddy." Bill sounds like he's smiling. He must be at work, trying to chat up the pretty girls in his lunch break. It's a warm, sunny day. Someone must have smiled back at him.

"Did I tell you my boss had a drink with us the other day?" Bill breaks the silence.

"No."

"Yeah. He coughed up a lung after the first sip. It was hilarious." Bill's laugh still reminds him of a horse, and snaps of a thousand memories flash behind Joe's eyes. They had the craziest adventures together.

"Sounds like you had fun." He smiles, although it hurts.

"We did. He's a good guy, just a little stiff."

The silence stretches between them again and Joe can't think of a good way to say how much he needs someone's company right now. He tries not to breathe too irregularly and just waits. Just waits.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Bill presses, and there's concern in his voice now.

"Of course." Joe forces out. He clutches at his stomach and squeezes his eyes shut. He can barely breathe through the pain washing over his body like high tide.

"I'm glad. Real glad, Joe." Bill gives him another chance to interject, to give him a sign, anything, but eventually, he lets the call come to an end. "All right, I gotta get back to work. I'll drop by sometime. Don't do anything I wouldn't, okay?"

"Okay." Joe lets the phone fall out of his grip and cries into his hands.

* * *

He's allowed to begin walking exercises with a definitive prosthesis in August. There's nothing he wants more than to get his mobility and independence back, so he works his ass off. But it's a bumpy road. Sometimes, he tries to walk too much and has to be stopped, other times he refuses to get out of bed until George puts the prosthesis on him to make him move. It's a rollercoaster. He feels better, then he doesn't, he gets up and walks, then he has a phantom leg made of pain that pins him to the bed. He and George spend days in good spirits and it tricks them into thinking it's over, but then Joe remembers how it used to be and he wants to shut the world out. They get by. It's a life lived in black and white.

"No, Skip, it's not - am I on speakerphone? Hey, Penk." Joe listens to George's voice as it drifts into the bedroom from the kitchen. It's late and he's exhausted from that day's PT, but he wants to hear what shenanigans the boys have been up to, so he stays awake despite how cozy it is under their blanket.

"We're fine. Joe's making progress…" George moves to the living room and the sound of books shifting on the bookshelf comes through the thin wall. It brings a fond smile to Joe's lips. George always does that while he's on the phone, fiddling with the books. Kind of like he used to in the uni library. Can't stay still.

"Uh-huh. He can walk up a flight of stairs like a champ." George laughs. "Still the same. Last Tuesday, he refused to put the prosthesis on for his checkup, and when the doc asked where it was, he said, _up the governor's ass."_

"I don't sound like that!" Joe yells, but George ignores him. The little shit knows his impression is perfect.

"We'd love that. Yeah, bring him along too, we could make it a party with Bill and Babe."

Joe groans and puts one of George's pillows on his face. Why does George have to invite visitors all the time? No, Joe doesn't want to celebrate that he's allowed to drink now. He doesn't want a party, and he doesn't want to meet people. He wants everyone to leave him the fuck alone.

When George climbs in beside him at last, Joe still has the pillow on his face. He hears and feels it when George leans over him and smacks a mock kiss to it. "How handsome you've become!"

Joe throws the pillow at him. "Why do you tell people about my PT progress? It's none of their business."

George's still chuckling at his own joke, but his tone is serious when he settles down under the blanket. He pokes Joe twice with a finger. "'Cause I'm proud."

* * *

When Joe's finally able to say he can walk with his permanent prosthesis comfortably, Bill gets him in contact with his own boss. There may be an opening for him in the company, if he's ready to rejoin the living. The problem is, he's not sure. There are days when he can't function from the lethargy weighing him down. He doesn't want to put Bill in a position where he has to apologise for saddling someone with his dysfunctional friend.

He and George fight about it. It's bad enough that George sleeps on the couch and they don't make up in the morning, which puts Joe in a wretched, self-deprecating mood all day. Fuck it, he knows the world would be better off without him. He should go out and think about leaving it. In the afternoon, not long before George is due to come home, he does it. Gets his autumn coat and his damned cane and goes out. He walks without any particular aim and ends up at a park, where he sits on a rickety bench and watches the peculiar shades cast on the ground by the setting sun. There are children running around on the nearby playground and an old woman is throwing breadcrumbs to a grey flock of pigeons. Joe's phone buzzes incessantly in the background, but it's easy enough to shut it out when the breeze ruffles the park's trees so pleasantly.

He doesn't answer or look at it for hours. But when the streetlights turn on, a wave of guilt and sadness catches up with him, and yeah, maybe it wasn't the most thought-out plan to just up and disappear and try living like a bum. With every stubborn cell in him screaming from reluctancy, he pulls his phone out at around eight at night. He has twenty-six missed calls and numerous messages. The first few are relatively calm, stuff like _"we need bread too"_ and _"did you leave without your phone?",_ but it escalates around the two-hour mark. He's contemplating how to answer when it rings again. The caller ID says it's Bill. Joe sighs, then picks it up and tells him where he is.

The pebbled pathway crunches under Bill's feet when he arrives stomping to Joe's bench. His eyes shoot bolts of lightning. "You goddamn bastard. What the fuck are you doing?"

Joe crosses his arms and mutters at his shoes. "Come on, Bill…"

"No, no 'come on, Bill'. You want a fight? I'll give you one. I don't care if you play the cripple, I will still punch you when you deserve it."

Joe glares, jaw set. "And I'll still kick your ass."

Bill isn't finished with his outburst. "Have you, _for one second,_ stopped to think of what you're doing to him? Hm? To us?" He gestures angrily at himself. "Can you imagine what it's like to pick up the phone and hear him panic as if the world has ended? For the second fucking time in six months!"

Joe didn't think of that. He forgot that the last time he didn't answer his calls, he almost died. He has never even considered how it must have gone when Bill first heard about his accident. "Sorry."

"It ain't me you gotta say that to." Bill exhales and runs a hand through his hair. He extends an arm in the direction he came from. "Get in the car. Go."

"Is he okay?" Joe asks, once they are on the road. From the middle of the backseat, he can't see Bill's face, but he can see his frown in the rearview mirror.

"No thanks to you." Bill shakes his head. He drives in silence for a while, but when they stop at a red light, he turns around and gives Joe a gentler stare. "Look, Joe. You're like a brother to me. But he's my friend too."

"I'm a mess, Bill." Joe mutters. As if that's an excuse for being an ass too.

"You're not a vegetable, for Christ's sake. Get your shit together, suck it up and reply to my boss."

"Okay."

Bill smiles and nods. "And you can talk to me, yeah? I ain't no shrink, but I can listen."

"Thank you."

When Joe opens the door of their apartment, he finds George directly facing it in the hallway, gnawing at his lip. For a second, relief sweeps over his expression, but then he lets out a breath and looks away, walking off towards the kitchen.

"George -" Joe starts as he follows, but he's cut off.

"Dinner will be take out 'cause I can't cook for shit right now, hope that's okay."

"I'm sorry."

George pretends he didn't even hear. "I'll be in the living room, watching the new Avengers movie."

He sits down on the far end of the couch and doesn't say a word or look at Joe for half an hour. Joe doesn't dare touch him, but when the first big action scene starts, he scoots to the middle cushion and tries to break the tension. "I just needed some fresh air, I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Yes, you did." George snaps, still staring at the screen. A few more minutes of nothing follows, then he goes on. He sounds bitter and angry. "Don't think I don't get it. You wanna drive me away before I quit on you for no reason. You wanna get rid of me to freely wallow in your shit for the rest of your life. But here's the thing, Joe."

George turns, points a finger at him and spits the words in his face. "You could be blind, deaf and fucking quadriplegic, and I still wouldn't leave."

Joe's a little intimidated by that ferocity. "All right."

"I'm not kidding."

"Okay."

"I'm not."

They stare at each other. Joe does his best to show how repentant he is but knows he must have switched to his kicked puppy face when George's lips twitch. George tries to keep his scowl fierce, but it doesn't suit him, and his muscles must automatically resist it in favour of a much more familiar expression. Joe's mouth curves into a lopsided smile and it's enough to make George break into quiet laughter.

"God, can you imagine?" Joe says, smiling along and touching George's cheek tentatively.

George stills his hand for a second and kisses the heel of his palm, then climbs closer and throws his arms around Joe to share a proper kiss.

"I was so worried." He mumbles into Joe's neck as they hug.

"I'm sorry."

"I hate you."

"I know."

* * *

Depression is nothing like he imagined before his accident. It's not constant weeping and melancholy. For Joe, it's more about losing control of the wheel, and everything, his thoughts, emotions and desires swing violently from one end of the spectrum to the other. Sometimes, his mood changes in the middle of the day.

A week after his half-assed attempt at running away, George has a day off and, naturally, he uses it to take Joe to PT himself. It’s an exhausting session, but the exercises go well and it gives Joe a small boost in confidence. They've just arrived back to their apartment when he pushes George on the couch and kisses his nonplussed question away, reaching under his shirt to touch his stomach. He has been riding a sudden surge of energy ever since they got up and he wants to make the most of it before he loses his motivation. He unbuckles George's belt.

"Oh." Is all George gets to say before his lips are captured again.

Joe's rougher than usual because he can feel that old wildfire desire poured into all his desperation to make George happy again. There’s nothing he wants more right now. Pressing George down into the cushions until he’s flat on his back and Joe’s propped up above him on his one knee and the stupid prosthesis, he starts stroking him to hardness. It doesn’t take more than a minute and George is thrusting into his hand, still confused but losing the capacity to care quickly. _Yes,_ Joe wants to tell him, _let go._ But he'd rather not break the kiss. He combs his fingers into George's silky hair and tugs on it until George tips his chin up. It gives Joe a perfect target. He trails his lips down to George's bared neck and holds him in place to suck on the salty expanse of his pulse point, even though the tightness of his grip must hurt by now. The sound George makes is pain-laced, but he pulls at Joe's shoulders for more and Joe gives it to him. He moves back up and bites George's plump bottom lip until George comes shuddering, gasping in his embrace for long, drawn-out seconds.

It’s the fastest quickie they have ever had, couldn’t have been more than five minutes. George looks dazed when Joe lets him go and there's an angry red spot on his neck where Joe went too hard. His exhales come out in quick, shaky huffs.

"It has been so long..." He mumbles, then throws an arm over his eyes. It's only then that Joe thinks it over with a clear head and realizes he hasn't had any kind of successful sexual contact with George in four months. Since the accident. How did George manage? What a terrible boyfriend Joe is.

He traces that ugly bitemark with a fingertip and feels like there’s black, acidic treacle dripping into his lungs. What has he done? "Are you okay?"

"I feel fantastic." George grins brightly, oblivious to Joe’s freefalling emotions. "God, that was intense." He laughs. “Ready for a longer round?”

Joe's composure implodes. He scrambles to his feet and storms off, locks himself in the bathroom and sits on the rim of the tub. He wants to tear his hair out. What the fuck is he doing?

"Where did you go? Joe!" He hears George's call, then his advancing steps. 

"So much for the afterglow." George sighs when he reaches the door and knocks on it, but Joe doesn’t answer. "You know I was just joking." The door handle moves up and down, but the lock holds. George’s voice grows tense. "Okay, I'll bite. What's wrong?"

Joe stares at the blue tiles on the opposite wall. Everything is cold and hard here. A drop of water falls out of the leaky tap every tenth second and vanishes in the gaping black hole of the drain. If Joe killed himself, would his soul linger, cling to this desolate little room like the droplets hang on the metal before they fall? Would George feel his presence in the air, on the things he once touched, even after he's gone? Would he talk to him? Joe hopes someone would help him not to grieve too long. There's no use. Joe will never be able to provide him what he did before anyway.

"I should end it." He tells the tiles. The swirling patterns on them seem to form a face. "All this struggle and pain. Just end it all."

"Jesus Christ, where did that come from?"

Joe grips the tub tighter. "I've been thinking about it. Held a knife to my wrist to get some relief."

A long, tense moment of silence comes, then George's voice, carefully measured. "Joe. Don't do anything stupid."

Joe almost chuckles. No, he wouldn't go through with it like this. He'd make sure George had the least chance to blame himself. "I want to stop your misery."

"Stop it by living again!" He can hear George's hands press to the door. "You can still do anything you want, anything at all."

"Please, just leave me, Georgie. I'm not strong enough to do it, but I don't want to be a burden to you. I'm ruining your life."

George makes an incredulous noise and bangs his fist on the door once. "Do you think I'd rather live it without you?" 

Joe can't reply to that. The droplets keep falling and he thinks of all the souls parting this world now. He thinks of the driver who hit him and sees a flash of memory from last night that burns his throat with bile. Why did they both have to be there at the same time? 

George tries the door handle again when Joe doesn't say anything. It still holds fast. "Look, what if this shit happened to me instead? Would you leave?"

"No. Never."

"So why do you think I would? I'm staying, I told you. And I want you to stay too." It's hard to believe. What good is left in being with Joe now? 

George's voice turns higher. "Open the door, please."

Joe watches the tile-face for another minute before he gives up and reaches out to turn the key. George all but falls in. His first glance goes to Joe's face, then his wrists, then the cabinet where the shaving kits are, and he only relaxes when he realizes they are all in order. Joe looks at him and wants to say something, anything, but suddenly, he's devoid of any strength to move or to do anything besides _be._ After another minute of silent staring, George steps between his legs and hugs him. The agony sharpens and there's nothing left to hold Joe up anymore. He buries his face in George's stomach and wraps his arms around his hips, gripping his shirt. 

"I'm glad you told me." George's left hand strokes his hair, the skin behind his ear and his cheek. His right arm steadies his shoulders. "I know it hurts. I know."

Joe has no awareness of time while the hug lasts. The world is blessedly shut out in the darkness between their bodies and George's hand is a warm caress on his face and hair, never tiring. This is how Joe would want heaven to feel like. Nothing but that touch.

George’s phone starts ringing and cuts into their bubble, but George doesn’t move. He presses down on Joe's shoulder when Joe tries to pull back.

“Could be your boss.” Joe mumbles. He still hasn't opened his eyes. George's stomach is soft under his cheek.

"Welsh?" George snorts, then switches to his boss' lazy tone. _"Eleven a.m. is dawn somewhere, Luz. It means naptime in my office."_

Joe smiles, but it leaves quickly. The ball of lead in his chest pulls him down to a place where the good things hurt more than the bad. "What if it's important?"

George's fingers tighten on the crown of his head. “It's not.”

They listen to the ringtone until it fades into the emptiness of their apartment. Even though they are in the smallest, most crowded nook of their place, Joe wishes there was less space around them. Wishes they were back in George's dorm, in his bed, among all his pillows and posters and odd little trinkets, the messy paper notes and the uni brand hoodies. He breathes George's home-smell in with the warmth radiating through his shirt and imagines they are having this conversation in the past, when they thought they were invincible.

"Last night, I saw the other driver's corpse in my dream, and it had your face.” He confesses. George's stomach tightens as he sucks a sharp breath in. “Then Ethan's, then Mom's, and then my own, and you were sitting on the curb trying to call my phone. But when I didn’t answer, you walked away."

George doesn't reply for a long time, but he keeps stroking Joe's head while he thinks. "Do you remember what caused my phobia?"

"When you were five, your brothers took you to a breached levee and you fell into the river.”

George hums yes. "They got me out quickly, but I kept gasping for air all the way home. I didn't even realize it wasn’t the water that suffocated me but my fear." His fingers dig into Joe's shoulder. “I feel like you might have the same problem. And maybe if we… if we could find what causes your fear, you’d get better.”

“Maybe.” Joe tries to think of his fear, of what it is, but he doesn't know. He's scared of too many things now, doors and cars and glass and scrubs, of slippery pavement and humiliation. But they all seem transient, inconsequential. They must not be the flooding river he's drowning in.

George squeezes his neck and murmurs a question. “Why do you think I’d want to leave you?”

“I don’t know.” Joe replies reflexively, deflecting. Then he thinks it over again and the pain, his relentless companion since he woke up without a leg, stabs him between his pecs. The levee's crumbling. Isn't it obvious why George will leave him one day? “Because it’s my fault.”

“What's your fault?”

That he fell into the water in the first place.

"I'm sorry." Joe gasps and it all collapses around him, his thoughts and regrets, the words he never said out loud. "I should have sat behind the wheel. I always do, but then I didn’t, and now it’s all my fault. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

George's voice is filled with sorrow. "Joe, it was an _accident."_

"Please forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive. It wasn't your fault."

"I made a poor choice. This is my punishment."

"Darling, no."

"Where's my leg?" Joe heaves wetly. He can't stop thinking about it. It must have been at least five pounds, because he lost more than that. What happens to the dead flesh they cut off? "Where did they - What happened to it?"

"I don't know."

"They took it away." How could they? It was Joe's leg, a part of him, a living, feeling part. He knew every mole, every ridge, how it felt when sand scraped between his toes, and they killed it, they took it from him and no one asked. He woke up and it was gone. "It was mine, but they cut it off and took it away."

"So that you could live. We talked about this. There are only so many broken pieces that they can set right."

"I'm so sorry, George." Joe sobs mindlessly. "Please don't be mad at me. I didn’t mean to... I didn't want this."

"Shh. No one did, no one."

"I'm sorry." He cries, and the tears don't stop falling until George's shirt is soaked-through and disgusting. 

They get out of the bathroom then and spend the rest of the day in bed, just lying there in silence together, wrapped around each other, until Joe falls into a dreamless, empty sleep.

He feels infinitely better the next morning, as if last night, a weight has been lifted off his chest. He has an epiphany, sort of. It's not simple loss he's fighting within himself, not anymore. It's guilt. Somehow, the fact that he wasn't able to choose the amputation himself makes him feel like he was asking for it with some wrongdoing he must have committed. It puts the impression in his mind that he might get his old life back if he punishes himself enough. Or, at least, that he won't lose more.

He gets up before George and makes them coffee and breakfast, even manages to make George smile by making that coffee exactly the way he likes it, full of sugar and milk. They eat in comfortable silence, scrolling through the news on their phones and reading the most ridiculous ones out loud for each other. Everything is normal until George stands up to gather the dishes and instead of taking them immediately to the dishwasher, he leaves them on the table for another minute and hugs Joe from behind.

"Do you wanna talk about yesterday?" He asks.

Joe shakes his head. "I feel a lot better."

"That's great." George tightens his embrace and gives him a kiss on the cheek. “I love you.”

Joe reaches up to stroke George's arms. "We'll be okay. I promise."

"Yeah."

* * *

He puts his life together piece by piece. When he's sure he can endure a workday without lying down, he calls Bill's boss and asks if he still has a vacancy Joe might be able to fill. He does, and Joe gets it. Winters is kind and polite, but never condescending, and Joe gets the impression he didn't hire him because he's Bill's friend. He doesn't seem like a man who can be influenced by nepotism. It's good to know he still has some value to offer as an employee. Joe's colleagues are nice enough, and the workplace is excellent compared to what he would have had at his old job. There are standing workstations available on his floor, so he can alternate between standing up and sitting during the day, which is perfect to avoid contractures.

The effect of being useful again is incredible. Joe's emotions don't take such wild nosedives anymore and he has more energy each day. He sleeps better too, and the nightmares become less frequent. It makes him less of a burden, and like the opposite of a vicious circle, it starts pulling him out of the swamp he sank into. He still doesn't want to socialize, but he can't get out of it. It comes with the territory of dating George. What his improving state of mind brings is the opportunity to go over to their friends, not just invite them to their own flat, and that, too, is a refreshing change. They spend a Friday afternoon at Bill's place with the old gang from uni - minus star lawyer Buck - and it's such a blast that they make it a biweekly thing. Xbox night at Guarnere's.

Although most aspects of his life seem to get back on track, sex is still difficult. Joe lost all his confidence in it and he's scared that their favourite positions would feel different now that he only has one leg to prop himself up with. Their bodies always fit so well together that he's afraid that harmony is lost forever, taken away with his leg. He doesn't want to see disappointment in George's eyes.

It's October, not long after their fourth anniversary and seven months after Joe's accident, when George works out a solution. They are in bed together one night, shirtless already, lying close on their sides. They trade damp little kisses as if they were words of a secret language. He kisses George's chin and George answers by pressing his lips to the corner of Joe's, then their mouths slip together. George's hand wanders down to Joe's stomach, rubbing in soothing circles and brushing the thin trail of hair there. It slips under his boxer briefs just enough to see if he's ready for more, then withdraws to rest below his navel. He curls his fingers and the drag of his blunt nails on Joe's skin makes Joe achingly hard.

George gives him another deep kiss, then laces their fingers together. "I want to try something."

Joe looks at him with longing. He feels bittersweet because this could be any night from their lives before, but it isn't, and he can't be sure they will have a good time. Nevertheless, he closes his eyes. "I trust you."

George blindfolds him. He pulls a thick black sleep mask out of his bedside table and slips it over Joe's eyes. The cloth is plush and comfortable, and the darkness brings both calm and excitement to Joe's mind. His vulnerability makes him break out in goosebumps. He can feel that George's face hovers over his, almost close enough to touch.

"Don't fall asleep on me." George teases, and his lips brush Joe's.

 _It would be impossible,_ Joe wants to say, but his voice is caught in his throat. George's palms touch him all over, from his hands to his shoulders to his hips, and with nothing else to focus on, Joe's heart skips a beat. It's a jolt to his senses, as if this was the first time George touched him and his body couldn't quite believe his crush would want him like that. George kisses his throat and his tongue feels hot, he mouths his way down to Joe's boxers and it leaves a tingling path, he wraps his lips around Joe's cock and it's wet and soft. With nothing to see, Joe can't anticipate what he does next, and it's easier to drift into that mindless state where he just lets the pleasure wash over him.

He tenses when his underwear takes longer to come off his left leg than the stump and he unconsciously reaches for his right thigh, but George catches his hands and puts them on his head. "Keep them on me."

George's smooth hair falls over his knuckles when George ducks his head again. Joe could push him and guide him to the rhythm he wants, but he's too overwhelmed to take back the control now. He does have one clear thought though, because he's still rock hard and it's enough to hope. "Georgie, can we go all the way?"

George pulls off and bites at his stomach lightly. "I thought you'd never ask." He jokes, and the smile rings in his voice.

Joe's hands fall to his knees as he straddles Joe's hips. The lube bottle opens with a loud popping sound and George makes hushed little noises above him. His knees tremble sometimes. Joe doesn't think he would have noticed either without the blindfold, but he has to rely only on touch and sounds now. He can hardly believe how erotic it is to just listen and think about what's happening, what George's doing for him, what they are about to do. He flushes from his abs to his hairline.

"I see I haven't lost my touch." George murmurs and kisses him on the lips. His taste is so comforting that Joe could cry. "Didn't think I could still make you flustered."

"You could make a goddamn statue blush."

George laughs and strokes Joe's cock with his slippery hand. His thigh muscles flex under Joe's palms as he raises himself higher.

"Okay?" He asks. Joe nods and tries to keep his breathing steady. It's still working, it's still good, and God, Joe's so happy that George seems still on board with ditching the condoms. They haven't had sex in more than half a year and Joe might just come immediately, it feels so awesome. So tight.

George blows a shaky breath out and strokes Joe's forearms. "Still good?"

"Yes." Joe says.

He can't even articulate anything else in the bliss that rolls up along his spine when George starts moving. He strokes his palms up from George's stomach to his chest, brushing the soft hairs there, and pinches his nipples. It makes George moan. Joe can imagine his body, has seen him like this hundreds of times, how he bites his lip when it curls into a cheeky smile, how his messy hair flops with each move. The image takes over his mind. He wants it so much… He barely has any awareness of his own body beyond the places where they touch and where he thinks George might look. Instinctively, he thrusts up, and George makes a low, satisfied noise.

"Fuck, I missed you." He sighs. "More, please."

It's a wanton chase for satisfaction from then on, fast and pure and almost thoughtless. Just their bodies finding their places with each other again. The harmony is still there. They haven't lost it. It's over as quickly as they could have expected after such a long time, but they hold hands until the very last pushes before the peak. When Joe pulls the blindfold down and blinks the blur out of his eyes, he sees that George's bright, toothy smile mirrors his own. He feels like he's floating. His body is lighter than a petal and he must have had happier moments in the past, but for the life of him, he can't remember.

He cradles George's face in his hands and laughs. "God…"

George smirks. "You can call me Georgie."

* * *

Thanksgiving comes and goes, and Joe finds himself in a bakery with a coworker, buying donuts in his lunch break and feeling truly content for the first time since March. And there's only one reason why he got here. He makes an impulse decision and changes his order to four slices of cake to go.

"A little surprise for someone?" Lipton, the nicest guy Joe has ever met, smiles at him knowingly.

"Yeah." Joe gives him a considering look. He doesn't make it a secret, but he's so closed-off in general that the only way they could have known is if Bill opened his big mouth. "My boyfriend, George."

Lipton doesn't even blink. "You could bring him along to the Christmas party."

The small smile Joe shoots him is probably the first he has seen on Joe's face. "I'll think about it."

On his way home, Joe buys a photo frame and puts a certain picture in it. He rides the subway as usual and thinks of how much has changed in his world. It was, without doubt, the worst year of his life, but he climbed out of the shithole he fell into and can finally see the light. He's glad they cut his leg off, because it means he can be here and have all the tiny, underappreciated sparks of happiness he didn't even notice before. It will be a different future, not the one he imagined, but it can still be bright, he thinks.

George starts salivating over the chocolate cake as soon as Joe gets home even though all he sees is the carton box, but Joe just puts it on the table and pushes the photo frame into George's hands.

"Is it Christmas already?" George smiles, then takes a good look at it. "Aw, Joe. I didn't even know about this picture. That was a good day, wasn't it?"

It's the 4th of July picture, bribed out of Joe's cousin with the promise of a nice Christmas present, then printed at Joe's workplace. He still doesn't like it that the wheelchair and the fake leg are so visible, but he knows it's his reality now. He's glad he never told George he had a flashback from that song that day.

He pulls another frame out of his bag, an empty one. "For our graduation picture." He says contritely.

George stares at it for a few seconds, then grabs it and forces out a smile. "I'll go put them on my bedside table."

Joe waits for five minutes, but when George doesn't come back, he goes after him. He finds him in the bathroom, with his forehead pressed to the mirror above the sink, his hands covering his face. He doesn't make a single sound and he doesn't shake, but Joe can see enough of his expression to know he's crying. He walks up behind him and grabs George's hands, hugs him like that and kisses the damp, salty warmth away from his cheek.

"I'm happy." George says, and they look at each other in the mirror. Joe can see the faint glimmer of joy in his eyes, but the utter fatigue and the dark circles stand out around them. His cheeks are less full than they were nine months ago, and his clothes hang on him loosely - he lost weight, too much. He looks bony and fragile.

"I know." Joe wishes he knew what to say. There's so much he wants to express, but all the words seem futile. He squeezes George's hands and hopes he'll understand. "Thank you."

George closes his eyes. Joe keeps watching their reflection and rocks them in place.

"Thank you." He repeats. It has been a tough year.

_~End~_

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts. Feedback is love :)


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